| Authorspeak! By Michelle Reale
Interview with Shree Ghatage
Q:
The stories in your collection Awake When All the World
is Asleep seems to exemplify a commonly held notion
that it is the small things in life that matter. The
way seemingly unremarkable daily events propel a story
forward is truly amazing. Does your inspiration come
from small details as well?
A: It is very difficult for me to talk about inspiration,
to quantify in precise terms the journey the mind makes
from an event seen or a sentence heard or an emotion
experienced, to the story the way it comes out on the
paper. That is why I cannot say whether small details
inspire me. Our lives are certainly comprised of them,
that much I understand.
Q: If one could quantify difference, that between Bombay,
your birthplace and St. John’s, Newfoundland, your present
home could be called “quantum.” Is the physical distance
from India an advantage at conjuring up the world of
the “Maya Building” inhabitants of your first story
collection?
A: I often think I would not have become a writer if
I had not left Bombay some twenty odd years ago. Leaving
India after marriage, however, was a second leaving
because at age 9 I was sent to a boarding school in
South India, a two and a half day journey by train,
a long day’s journey by plane from Bombay. For seven
years I was in a Catholic ethos for ten months of the
year, coming home to my own traditional, Hindu, family
culture the remaining two. Twenty-eight years of my
forty-five years have been spent away from home. A very
significant amount of my life given over to conscious
and sub-conscious contemplation: just what the doctor
ordered if one is interested in writing!
Q: “Resilience” is a word that one could apply to both
individual characters as well as the tone that is set
in the collection; your characters seem to accept life
for what it is, no more, no less. Was this effect achieved
consciously or unconsciously on your part?
A: One of the themes of “Awake...” is the resilience
shown by human beings to life. This effect was completely
unconscious on my part. The 11 stories in my collection
were written over three years. Almost all the stories
began with me picking up a blank piece of lined paper
and beginning to write. I had very little idea of what
was going to happen in that first draft before it was
actually written. Some stories began with a definite
image, others with a line that came into my head out
of nowhere. The two I remember are the opening sentences
of “Hiru” and “Our Family.” For the “Awake” story, from
which the title of the collection takes its name, I’d
come to that blank piece of paper after reading yet
again Guy de Maupassant’s “The Necklace.” I thought
I’d like to begin a story with the mention of a pearl
necklace.
Q: You are just completing your first novel. Can you
give your readers an intimation of your subject matter
and your inspiration for it?
A: I was born 10 years after India attained Independence.
Ours was a joint family. My grandfather was born in
1890, my grandaunt perhaps 15 years later. Bombay did
not begin to significantly change — from my perceptive,
at least — until the late 60’s. Although I was born
after Independence, the household I grew up in had a
pre-independence culture. The pace was slow, aspirations
and ambitions almost always centered around intellectual
and spiritual acquisitions. This perceptive on life
has always held a great attraction for me. It is this
aspect of life I explore in my novel, which is set in
Bombay, in 1947, the year India achieved Independence
after a very long and hard and bloody independence struggle.
I have always been interested in the history of Maharashtra
- the Indian State of which Bombay is the capital -
which produced the great Maratha Empire and which also
produced intellectual giants who for a while spear-headed
the Independence movement. This then is the political
and historical background in which my novel is set.
The story itself is about a family, about the daily
events that occur in their lives, and the way they choose
to react to them, culminating in shifts and events born
out of those choices.
Q: Is the form of linked, interconnected stories more
or less of a challenge than writing a full length novel?
Which do you prefer?
Writing a novel is the most difficult thing I have done
in my entire life. I don’t think I can say which I prefer:
short stories or working on a novel. At the moment it
would be like comparing apples and oranges.
Q: Readers and writers alike would enjoy knowing what
a typical day in the life of Shree Ghatage is like,
say for instance, your writing routine.
A: Since the last four months, my typical day has been
waking up at 5:30, half an hour earlier than usual so
I can finish my 45-minute daily yoga routine before
I begin writing. I write from 8:30 am until roughly
1:30 to 2 o’ clock. The yoga, I find, is essential to
ward off the painful side effects of sitting at the
computer for long hours. The rest of the day is devoted
to family matters at the end of which I am so tired
that I simply sink into sleep, around 9:30 pm. Trying
to finish a novel has been hard on my family!
Q: The Western world is buying and reading Indian literature
at an unprecedented rate. Recently Oprah Winfrey picked
Rohinton Mistry’s A Fine Balance for her book club.
How do you feel about the so-called “Indian Sweepstakes”
in publishing?
A: That the world is taking interest in the East and
in India in particular, can only be a good thing.
Q: Which authors do you enjoy and who has influenced
your work the most?
A: I enjoy reading authors who use language with skill
and precision. I have a personal bias for plot and characterization.
A journalistic approach to fiction is not my cup of
tea. I want to read books that will nudge me further
into understanding the human condition. Above all, I’m
interested in how the mind works. In terms of influences,
I grew up reading British authors: Somerset Maugham,
A.J.Cronin, Arthur Conan Doyle, Daphne Du Maurier, the
Bronte sisters, Jane Austen, and many, many more whose
names escape me at the moment. And like a million other
readers, I fell in love with them instantly.
Q: Finally, a question I feel compelled to ask. Much
has been made of the Asian writer and his or her “pandering
to the west” - that is, writing about India in a romanticized,
exotic or caricatured way in order to appeal to the
ideas those in the West may already have about India.
What are your thoughts on this? As well, in general,
tell us what you think of the writing being published
by Indians in the U.S and Canada.
A: I cannot speak for others but I hope my writing will
not be judged guilty of “pandering to the West.” My
India is not exotic. I write from a place that is not
foreign to me, which does not originate from a place
outside of me, and which is not attractively or remarkably
strange or unusual or bizarre. It is the India I grew
up in. I write about it the way I see it: as a culture
that is evolving and continues to evolve five thousand
years later.
When working on a manuscipt, I don’t read fiction published
by Indians in the U.S. and Canada. I want to have a
literary space in my head which is exclusively my own
and I don’t want any interference even if it is of the
sub-conscious kind. The only exception I make is Salman
Rushdie. I read him for his brilliant ability with words.
Having said that, I haven’t yet had a chance to read
his last two books.
..-
End Of Article.....
|
